Next Time
by reimieko
Summary: Tony did not like to visit his father's grave.


Title: Next Time

Rating: T (M for language?)

Summary: Tony did not like to visit his Father's grave.

This is my first story, just a one-shot. Please let me know what you think? I appreciate all reviews :)

* * *

Tony was no stranger to formal occasions. A black coat over a neatly pressed white dress shirt, it had become as familiar to him as the Iron Man suit. Board meetings and the Stark Expo were the normal appropriate occasions in which he would trade the red and gold for black and white. And sometimes it was simply because he felt the need to "dress to impress". But today he couldn't bring himself to wear it. There was no clean coat, no black tie, no cufflinks, no slacks, and no overly polished shoes. He stood there in jeans and an old dirty wife-beater dotted with fresh oil stains from the garage. He stared at the two names in front of him with his hands in his pockets, back slightly slouched. He narrowed his eyes so that the names were all he could see against the gray stone.

_Howard and Maria Stark_.

He never wore a suit when he came here. No, if he wore a suit, it would make him feel obligated to mourn.

* * *

At age 5 Tony realized what it meant to be surrounded by everyone and still be alone.

"Tony! How many times have I told you, don't leave your toys lying around!" Howard picked up the Captain America action figure and kicked aside the Red Skull. It skidded across the floor and stopped underneath Howard's desk. He turned back to face the chalk board while folding his arms in front of his chest. "I can't have distractions right now."

A young Tony took the remaining toy from his father's outstretched hands, holding them protectively to his chest. He glanced at the Red Skull under the desk but could not move under his father's piercing gaze. He would have to come back for it later. "I only wanted to…"

Howard tapped a finger to his lips, his attention fixated on the chalk board in front of him. He wiped his hand across the green surface, erasing a diagram, and began to write a new algorithm. "Only wanted to what?" He didn't turn to look at Tony.

_"Only wanted to play with you."_ Tony looked down at the floor and muttered, "Nothing…"

"Okay. Good. Now go play somewhere else." Howard cursed to himself as a piece of chalk broke and threw it across the room hitting the wall opposite of Tony. The man had not gotten a good night's sleep in God knows how long, and stepping all over his son's toys that were carelessly left out in the open was not lightening his mood.

"Yes sir…" Tony continued to hold the toys closely to his chest and he felt his heart drop closer to his stomach. He had been bored all day and was hoping to garner his father's attention by reenacting the historical event of Captain America taking down the evil Red Skull. But every time he mentioned it Howard's face would grow dark. He would tell Tony that it wasn't a good time. Tony thought maybe now would be a good time. But clearly he was wrong.

He turned on his heels and left Howard's office, in search of his mother. He turned the corner and walked past several open doors, peeking into each one. The house was far too large for a family of three, even with the dozen of cooks, servants, and maids responsible for running the house. It seemed the more people that were in the ridiculously spacious home, the lonelier it made Tony feel. Even with the constant sound of the cooks preparing the next meal lavish meal, the maids vacuuming, and the clanging of metal on metal from his father's workshop, it was the sound of Tony's footsteps bouncing off the empty walls that seemed to ring louder than the rest. A loud, lonely sound that only he could hear.

After peeking into almost a dozen different rooms, Tony finally came upon his mother. She was on the phone, her hand running across her face with a crinkled forehead. Her hair was slightly disheveled, her shoulders hunched over from obvious stress. She glanced up for a moment when Tony entered the room but brought her attention back to the patron on the phone.

"Mommy? I was thinking was could play _Captain America._ I have Captain America, but I could go find the Red Skull and we could play a bit. If…if you're not too busy." Tony held the figurine out in a hopefully gesture, a small smile coming across his face. Between his father and mother, she was the one that he could grab the attention from.

Sometimes.

"What? No…no, that was not the agreed payment. You signed a legal document that bluntly said if Howard built those mortars you'd pay—Yes, I understand the amount, but you're getting Stark Industries merchandise. You're not only paying for quality, but reliability. Reliability that it will get the job done." Maria leaned back in his chair, massaging the bridge of her nose.

"Mommy?" Tony walked up closer to the desk, posing the Captain America figure in front of her.

Maria looked down at the toy, and swiveled her chair sideways. She waved her had at Tony, still not looking at him. "Yes, yes I know, but—Tony, I can't play with you right now. I'm in the middle of something. We'll play later. What? Yes, I'm still here. No , it's no one. Now, he had an agreement…."

Maria continued but Tony was already out the door, the Captain America figure left forgotten on the desk.

Tony vowed he would never fill his house with so many people if it meant he would continue to be alone.

* * *

Tony gritted his teeth at the suppressed memory. Where had that come from? Most of his childhood he had buried so deep within his mind that he could rarely call upon them or even label them as a memory. They were more or less dreams to him, if one were to properly call those dreams. Nightmares? He couldn't label them. His hands were balled into fists in his pockets, and he used the tip of his foot to dig mindlessly at the dirt on the ground.

Every day as a child, like clockwork, Tony would try to catch his parents at a time where they would be in a mood to play with him, to pretend to be the superhero he looked up to. To sit down like a family. He craved the attention that he would so rarely get from them. His mother would play with him and he reveled those moments in time. Of everyone in his life, she was the one that made him feel like he existed. The only time the servants would give him those moment of recognition would be if he was pulling pranks around the house. And even then, it wasn't positive attention. His father would only give him more than word of acknowledgement when it involved the completion of a new robotic engine or development of a faster computer processor. It was when he acted out or achieved the impossible. That is how he garnered attention. That is how he gained acknowledgment. That is what molded him. His snarky comments, he outrageous need to build the next best thing even if it meant superseding something that he built, _especially _if it meant superseding something that he built. It would gain him attention from enemies, competition, the press, women, everyone's attention would be put on him. And he loved it.

At least he used to love it.

Now it became painfully obvious that he was unsuccessfully trying to fill the void in his heart that his parents could never fill.

"Che." Tony kicked the soften dirt at the headstone spraying clumps of dirt at the name _Howard_. He bowed his head. "Why…"

* * *

At age 10, Tony discovered what alcohol could do to a man.

"Howard, STOP." He heard his mother protest as she held her hands on his chest pushing away. Tony was peeking around the doorframe, his hand clenching around the wood. He dared only poke one eye over the edge. His father had told him to go to bed earlier, but the sound of his parent's raised voices made him curious. He had quietly tip-toed down the staircase, making his way towards the noise in the kitchen. Howard was nursing a bottle of whisky in one hand, the other wrapped tightly around Maria's wrist. He pressed his face close to hers and she could smell the stench of alcohol emanating from his breath.

"Stop? Why would I stop?" Howard gave a lecherous smirk and pulled at her wrist, bring Maria closer to him. He pressed his lips firmly against hers and she gave a muffled grunt and tried to pull away.

She gasped for air when she finally broke away. "You're drunk. You've drowned yourself in half that bottle AGAIN. You need to stop and come up for some air." She wretched her wrist from his grasp, rubbing at the red marks with her other hand. Her eyes were focused intently on her husband. Tony did not move from where he was, he only watched.

Howard's face narrowed, the corner of his lips dipping down. "Drunk? You think I'm drunk?" He brought to bottle harshly to his mouth and took three large gulps. "You don't know a damn thing." He forcefully wrapped his hand around her waist, gripping Maria's lower back hard enough to bruise. Grimacing, she pushed hard at his chest in an attempt to get away from her intoxicated husband but he held his grip.

Tony could see the pain etched on his mother's face, and it made him feel uneasy. He had seen his parents fight before, usually with the both of his arguing and yelling at each other only to be resolved by the morning as if nothing had happened .But his was the first time that he saw his father drinking this heavily, the first time he saw his father hurting his mother. He did not like where it was going, and judging by the strain in her voice, his mother didn't either. Tony made a move from behind the doorframe and came into view, though neither of the two adults noticed. Howard was too focused on multitasking his hold on the bottle and Maria, while the latter was trying to dislodge herself from the drunken man.

"Let go of me." Maria said sternly, her face stretching away from him.

"Ah come on now. Don't be like that. Give Howard a kiss." He leaned forward, pressing the small of her back to push her closer. He caught her lips in a kiss that was sure to bruise and moved to undo her blouse.

Maria panic rushed through her and she forcefully shoved her husband off her. "Howard, I said LET GO OF ME!"

Tony barely had time to react when he saw his father's hand slap Maria's face. Howard's body stood there, domineering over her smaller frame as she held a hand to her check. A patch of red appeared, already hot to the touch as water began to fill her eyes. She held them back though, because she would not show weakness to the man that thought he could have anything he wanted.

"You do _not_ raise your voice to me. Do you understand me?" Howard sneered through clenched teeth and then took one last gulp of whiskey before throwing the bottle on the ground beside them. It shattered into hundreds of tiny sharp shards, some of the larger pieces stopping just short of Tony's feet.

"Mom?" Tony barely heard himself when he spoke, though it sounded like it echoed throughout the entire house.

Maria swiftly turned around, lowering her hand from her face. She took two steps towards Tony, careful to watch where she stepped. "Anthony, go to your room."

"But you're crying." Tony tried to approach his mother, but she shook her head.

"I'm fine. Just talking to Daddy. Go to your room." She smiled brightly at Tony to try and cheer him up. She could see the concern in his face, but she didn't want to worry him. Maria gave a sideways glance to Howard, warning him not to do anything else while their son was still in the room.

Howard gave huff and turned his head to the side, glancing away from Tony. "Your mother's right, just head upstairs. Besides, I thought I told you to go to bed already."

Tony looked from the calmly face in front of him and then to the man behind her. He stared intensely at his father, anger growing in him.

"You were hurting her."

Tony had a moment of bravery but he flinched when he saw anger flash across Howard's face, recoiling slightly. Maria came closer to Tony, kneeling down and put her arm around him, embracing him with a hug that he hadn't felt in so long. For a moment, everything was blocked out, his senses focused purely on the warm loving hug his mother was giving him. But it was short lived. She pulled back, her hands resting on his shoulders. "Go to your room, sweetheart." She gave him a tight squeeze. "I love you."

Tony looked over her shoulder to see his father had his back to him. He slowly nodded, "I love you too, Mom," and stole another hug from her before turning to leave the kitchen. He was only half way up the stairs before he heard his parents talking again.

"You need to stop. Tony shouldn't have to see that—"

"See what? This wouldn't have been an issue if it wasn't for you!"

"I'm not going to let you try and use me just because you are weak enough to come crawling to the bottle every time you want to hide away from something. Every time something doesn't go your way. It is not my fault they can't find him! He was lost in that frigid wasteland and it's been decades! What makes you think, that after all these years, you'll still be able to find him? Alive? Steve—"

Tony cringed when he heard the sickening sound of skin hitting skin.

"Don't. Say. His. Name."

He didn't hear his parents after that, he pushed his hands over his ears and moved quietly up to his room, scared to make any noise that might set off another argument. Tony saw the sadness in his mother's eyes, how she was holding back her tears. His mother was too proud to cry. He tried to be strong like her. But he couldn't. He was just a kid.

He cried enough for the both of them.

* * *

Tony's eyes were staring at the names etched in the headstone. He read them over and over again. _Howard and Maria Stark. Howard and Maria. Howard. Maria._

_Stark._

"Stark." He spat out the name like it was venom. The billionaire was called Mr. Stark more often than his first name, only Happy and Pepper called him Tony. Otherwise, it was some pompous buffoon trying to weasel cash and favors from Tony's deep pockets. Even some of the Avengers would slip out calling him by the last name, particularly Steve when he found Tony to be insufferable.

Anthony Edward Stark. It was small, the use of a name. Calling someone by one name rather than another. Anthony. Tony. Stark. Tony wouldn't show it, he wouldn't allow anyone to see the flash of annoyance cross his playboy features. No, he would not show any emotion that could be mistaken as weakness. He wouldn't give them that pleasure. But every time someone called him _Stark_ he felt they weren't talking to him. But to his father. To Howard. And how he loathed to be compared to the man that had done little to raise him. Done little to earn the right to be called his father. Not only compared to that man, but mistaken for, identified as.

He was not his father.

* * *

At age 17, Tony found he could not cry for something that he lost. Because it was never his.

"Today we are gathered to send the souls of Howard and Maria Stark to heaven. We are their family. We are their friends. We are their companions throughout their time on Earth, and their escorts to a safe haven. Though their lives came to a tragic end, their legacy does not end with them. They are survived by their son, Anthony Edward Stark, a prodigy who will rise to meet the hardship ahead of him. But like his father, he will do it with grace, poise, determination, and care. The Starks will not be forgotten…"

The priest continues to give his sermon to the hundreds gathered within the church. Between his remarks, he gestured to the portraits of Howard and Maria, then to the sky, then across the attendees, and then back to Howard and Maria. It all seemed so practiced to him, nothing personal. Tony had turned his attention away from the funeral at the mention of his name. He felt the eyes of everyone around him burrowing into his skin, getting underneath him.

His parents had died a week earlier from an apparent car accident. Every news station covered the accident, taking shots of the car flipped over on its top with metal shrapnel thrown about the highway. There had been several ambulances accompanied by the flashing sirens of cop cars in hopes of finding survivors.

There were none.

Tony had been at home with the maids when they got the phone call. He knew it was not an accident. The turns were not sharp enough to cause any crash, there was no rain, there were no hazards, and he knew his father was too stubborn to die from something as simple as a car crash. No. It had to be flamboyant. To go out just as his lived. This was something different. It was no secret that there were competing companies that would have loved nothing more than to thin the competition with the loss of a certain billionaire. Tony knew the crash was no accident, that someone had orchestrated the entire scene. He tried to voice his opinion, but he was shrugged off and assumed to be hysterical in the loss of his parents. But he was not hysterical; he did not spend the next days of his life crying between the restless nights of sleep. He only thought about the last time he spoke to Howard. The night of the accident.

_"But I'm ready! I have been building for his company since before graduating MIT! None of those idiots you have employed there can match what I can do." Tony threw his hands up in frustration before slamming them down on the kitchen counter, gripping the edges hard enough to turn his knuckles white._

_"Ready? How can you possibly be ready to run _my_ company while you're busy chasing around every girl that will open her legs? Or spending your time drinking your own failure away? Don't think I haven't noticed when the whiskey is suddenly empty!" Howard swung the bottle in his hand for emphasis. They had been arguing for the past hour over whether Tony was ready to take over the company when he was 18. It was something Howard had always planned on doing. He knew he wasn't going to be around forever, and he didn't want some other company like H.A.M.M.E.R. buying out his shares and taking over. No. He wanted someone that he knew, that he knew would not bring shame to the Stark name. Someone that he could keep an eye on and mold into the person that could run his company. He had been training Tony since birth to be able to take on that responsibility and he had the intelligence to accomplish that. But as of recently, Tony had shown more interest in biology rather than physics._

_"Like you're one to talk!" The younger man pointed an accusing finger. "You've been drinking for as long as I can remember. The smell of alcohol is the furthest my memory goes, and a day hasn't gone by where it's not reeking from your body. You may polish up good enough for the press, but you're nothing but a fucking alcoholic! It's remarkable no one has ever thought to shut us down!"_

_Too quick for Tony to react, Howard threw the bottle of whiskey at a spot on the wall just above Tony's head and roughly grabbed him by the collar. He ran forward pressing Tony up against the wall, one hand clenched tightly around his clothes, the other flat against the wall beside his head. Howard brought his face directly in front of Tony and the other man tried to move his head to the side to escape the stench of alcohol and cigars._

_"Don't you dare—look at me! Don't you EVER dare raise your voice to me like that again! You may not respect me, but you will respect the fact that I am your father. And this," His grip on Tony's collar tightened and Tony could feel it restrict some of his breathing. "This is not what I trained you to do. I trained you to be the best engineer in the country. The world! I've been working on turning you into the one person that can run Stark Industries when I'm gone, but you've decided to make a mockery out of everything and throw it away!" Howard released a heavy sigh laced with agitation and disappoint that Tony could _feel. _Nothing knew there._ _He brought himself close to Tony's ear and whispered harshly. "And it is not _us_. Right now there is me and there is you. And it seems like that's how things are going to stay."_

_Tony clenched his teeth, letting the words of his father sink in. "Training me?" He whispered, his lips turning upward into a snarl, his eyes downcast fighting back tears he hasn't shed in over 10 years. "You've been training me? What about raising me? What about treating me like your child rather than some project!"_

_He threw his head up to meet his father's face, tears falling from his face. He didn't know what he was feeling. Sadness? Anger? Loneliness? He was being flooded with so many pent up emotions that he couldn't decipher one from another. But in this moment, when he had once kept everything so deep inside him, he couldn't hold back anymore. He held his breath and waited for Howard's response._

_"I created machines and I created you."_

_The words had barely left Howard's mouth before he was reeling back. He gave a grunt and looked up at the person before him. They stood there, looking at each other with neither of them saying a word between their labored breathes. Tony lowered his fist and gave it a shake to dissipate the tingling sensation. He had never hit another person before, let alone his father. The other man gave a few tentative touches to his face before grunting and leaving the room. _

_Leaving Tony alone, once more. _

_He looked from his fist, to Howard's retreating form, to the broken bottle on the floor. Tears mingled with the alcohol on the floor._

"Tony?"

He was broken out of his reverie at the mention of his name. He brought his head up and scanned the crowd around him, looking for the source of the voice. When he heard it again his eyes narrowed.

"Tony, would you like to say a few words?" The priest was at the front of the podium, offering him the floor. He had a wide smile plastered across his face with crinkled eyes sending him encouragement. "Please don't be shy, we are all in mourning for the passing of your mother and father."

The brunette made a motion to move and hesitated. Did he have anything to say about his mother? Yes, he could think of great things to say about her. But his father? The idea of saying anything positive about him, in front of the hopeful onlookers, made his blood boil. They didn't know anything about him. About his father. They only knew the façade. He stood without look at anyone, keeping his eyes fixated on his feet.  
"My mother, Maria, she was a caring woman. She loved me and I loved her. And I will miss her. But…" He stopped, mulling over his next choice of words carefully. "But Howard…I won't forget him."

_I won't forgive him._

* * *

Happy had been standing by the limo while Tony was crouched before the gravestone. It had been a little over an hour and he had been watching his boss the entire time. He thought about going to get him, but he knew better than to bother his friend when they came here. So he waited, just as he did every month they came here.

By this time Tony was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest with his arms wrapped around his shins. He rested his chin in the small divot his knees created. "Well fuck me."

Tony had decided early in his childhood that he would not have maids, servants, or cooks. Sure, he would have a house big enough to match his ego, but he refused to fill the corridors with anyone. He didn't need anyone. He didn't need anyone to be there to pass by him. To pass through him. He didn't want a false sense of family. Sure he had Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey, but they were different. They were the exception he made.

Tony had once told himself that he would never drink, that he would never treat any woman as Howard did to his mother. He would never use a drink as a crutch to escape his own emotions and short comings, and he would certainly never use violence on a woman to let out his anger. He never wanted to become anything that would resemble his father. But it seemed he was still his father's son as much as he tried to tear himself from the lineage. He drank, and he drank hard. He drank when he was frustrated, when he was depressed, when he was lost. He had become dependent on a substance that increased whatever emotion he was trying to escape tenfold. And though he had never hit a woman that did not mean he didn't use them for his own personal reasons. He had become a notorious playboy, sleeping with more woman than he could remember. The number of woman he slept with was more than he could remember and the names he remembered he could count on one hand. Tony had never hurt a woman, but he used them to release anger and frustration, he used them as a distraction. He had become dependent on using alcohol and woman to escape his problems.

And now? Now he was in front of the grave of a man who had taken anything remotely close to a childhood and royally fucked it over. He refused to cry over a man who had claimed to create him, train him, rather than raise him. His mother? Yes. Though she wasn't the prefect mother, being distracted and neglectful easily when it involved work, she did love him. He knew that. But he couldn't bring himself to cry in the presence of his father, even if it was metaphorically.

He would not cry. He would not show weakness in front of the man that he had long ago call Father. He tried to focus on anything else other than the anger that was seething below his skin. His face tightened into a scrunch and he bit his bottom lip, drawing small amounts of blood. Feeling as if he was going to explode from the emotions he was holding back. And he released.

"You…I gave you everything. I gave you my life, my mind, my own self-respect! I told myself I would never be like you, I would never grow into a man who could be so callous towards his own family. Every day I woke up thinking, _"What wouldn't Howard do?"_ just to make sure I didn't walk down the same path as you. I wanted something more for myself, to become my own person. I can't even _be_ myself. I'm stuck with the Stark name, and maybe it's because I'm too weak to do anything about it. Or maybe it's because I'm too stubborn, something that I sadly got from you, and that I want to prove I can do better than you. Take your own name and give it more meaning that what you accomplished. To throw it in your face. I don't know. You're not even here. I don't even know what I'm doing _now_. Every first Wednesday I come here, talking to you as if you could respond. I come here for _some_ reason, and when I leave I tell myself _"Next time I won't be here. I won't come back_" But here I am…again. What am I doing here…"

Tony ran his hands through his hair, tossing it into a mess before dragging his work beaten palms down his face. The uncertainty was replaced with raged. Anger was seething throughout his body. He balled his hands into fists and began to repeatedly strike them into the soft dirt. "What was it about me? Could I be nothing but a disappointment to you? Not good enough? Not worthy? I did _everything _to please you. Make you proud of me. I thought after all these years I wanted your love. No, before that I needed your respect, I needed your acknowledgment that I meant something. Was I nothing more than something fucking burden? What am I to you? WHAT!"

He gripped at the headstone, still on his knees. He stared at the name _Howard_ waiting for a reply.

"Answer me!"

Nothing. He didn't care how loud he was getting, how desperate his voice had become to betray him.

"ANSWER ME!"

Still not reply.

Tony let his shoulders slump in defeat and his head falling. "Just…tell me. What did I do wrong…"

He knew he wasn't going to get a reply. But that never stopped him from coming. Once a month, every month, he came to the grave site of his parents, hoping to get some sort of answer from the man that was his father. And every time he was greeted with silence. To Tony, it felt like Howard was agreeing with everything he was saying.

Unable to take the silence any longer, Tony got to his feet, not bothering to wipe off the dirt that was clinging to his jeans. He began to walk back to the limo where Happy was waiting. He kept his head up straight and proud.

"Tony? Are you—" Happy opened the door for him, looking curiously at the wet marks on his face.

"It's raining." Tony wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand. "Should have brought me an umbrella."

He got inside and closed the door himself. Happy looked from the car door to the sky. The sun was shining brightly down on them, not a cloud anywhere. He sighed and made his way to the driver's side.

"Okay Tony, next time."


End file.
